CHAPTER 68

By that evening, Tory had gone to Cobra Kai training and afterwards, had successfully jimmied the lock on Silver's car trunk, and attached the tracker to lining of the car trunk. They had planned for Tory to stay in Cobra Kai, to keep her ear on the ground in case Silver said anything that would help lead them to Emily.

Miguel, on the other hand, entered the Miyagi-Do dojo a few days later, a massive smile on his face. Their search for Emily had started really well and they were already starting to record everywhere he went, and in the meantime he would be remaining with Miyagi-Do while they worked on their investigation, so he needed to just stay under the radar and not arouse suspicion. However, that failed almost immediately as Miyagi-Do saw him and their jaws dropped. He looked… normal. When they had seen him a few days before, he looked like an absolute mess but now… he was clean-shaven, hair brushed back, eyes no longer sunken, clothes no longer wrinkled. He looked completely different, and that raised every eyebrow in Miyagi-Do as he walked into the dojo.

"Morning, everybody!" He said as he stepped inside the dojo. The students and senseis, who were stretching before training, looked at him like he had just sprouted a third arm.

"Um… Miguel?" Daniel stammered. "You look…"

"Reborn? Charming? Unbelievably sexy?" Miguel smirked.

"Different." Daniel finished. "Are you okay? You look a bit different to how we last saw you. Is everything okay? "

Miguel nodded.

"Everything's great! Yeah, last night, I just figured that I should move on from the past. No way to change it, and life only moves in one direction, right? Might as well move with it."

"Yeah, but…" Johnny started, but Miguel interrupted him.

"Sensei, I'm fine. Honestly." Miguel said. "I'd like to introduce you all to Miguel 2.0! Guys… I'm normal again!"

All of the students and senseis looked at each other, a mixture of confusion and suspicion on their faces. Something was seriously peculiar with Miguel. They didn't know what it was or when it happened. All they knew was that Miguel was not "normal again", and something was definitely up…

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But for the life of the Miyagi-Do students, they couldn't figure out what in the world Miguel was doing. He had gone off the grid for nearly 3 days after they had seen the emotional wreckage that was the former Miguel, and now he was an overly cheerful self that he hadn't even been like even in his brightest times. He was clearly lying about something, but due to the fact that his poker face was absolutely brilliant, Miyagi-Do couldn't figure out what it was. So when he was laughing and joking around during training, or trying to attempt a stupidly impossible backflip kick when sparring with George and failing miserably and laughing it off, they knew something deeper was up. They just needed to figure out what…

This occurred for the next few days, with every day, Miguel going straight from fooling absolutely nobody in Miyagi-Do, to Tory's house where they would spend the entire afternoon and evening with Tory and Mary, trying to find possible locations where Emily could be. As Mary had predicted, it wouldn't be that difficult to find any outlying locations as the only places that Silver went were to the shops, the dojo and to his house. They were awaiting that out of the ordinary location and they would capitalise on it. They had created a massive billboard in Tory's house, with a map of L.A in the background and adding pins to every location the tag had tracked Silver to.

Finally, at the end of that week, Miyagi-Do decided to stop evading the question that had been burning on all of their minds and decided to ask it.

"Okay, guys, I'm gonna head out now! Gotta meet up with a friend and then make it home for dinner. It's been fun, see y'all tomorrow!" Miguel exclaimed in the same cheery tone that none of them were buying. He then left the dojo and as soon as he did, the Miyagi-Do students turned to each other.

"You know what? I'm just gonna say it… nobody's seriously buying this overly happy new Miguel, are they?" Demetri commented. Sam shook her head.

"No, something's definitely up with him. George, you know anything?" Sam asked. George shook his head too.

"Don't look at me. I haven't really spoken to Miguel since… well, since the accident three weeks ago. I think he's been avoiding me to be honest." He stated.

"Well if you don't know what Miguel's been up to, no chance we do." Chris remarked.

"We can always find out." A voice came from behind them. They turned to see Nate was the one talking.

"Huh?" George said.

"Did you guys hear what Miguel said?" Nate asked. "He said he's going to meet with a friend now. Well he isn't meeting with George, and he doesn't have that many friends other than the people in this room, so chances are whoever he's meeting with has something to do with the reason behind Miguel 2.0, or whatever the hell he's calling it."

"So if we follow him, we'll get to see who he's meeting." Sam finished. "You guys fancy a bit of a spy stakeout mission?"

A few moments later, the Miyagi-Dos hurried into Sam's car and just as they saw Miguel pedalling away down the street (his car had obviously been totally wrecked in the accident and he was yet to buy a new one with the money his insurance company had given him), they managed to drive towards him. They made sure to stay a couple of meters away from him so he wouldn't know they were following him, but they stalked him as he headed through town. They became increasingly confused as they saw him leave the general area and head into the rougher part of town. As they continued to drive, they saw the standard of housing get lower and lower as their curiosity got higher and higher. Eventually, they saw Miguel pull into a compound and hop off his bike, before walking towards one of the houses. They couldn't go into the compound themselves as they knew Miguel would see them, so they were forced to stop just outside, too far for all of them to see who Miguel was meeting with.

"Great, now what?" Sam remarked, sarcastically. "We came all this way and we can't even see him!"

"Relax. There's a solution." Demetri remarked, before taking out his phone and zooming it to the maximum possible zoom. As he did this, his jaw practically hit the floor with shock as he saw who Miguel was meeting with.

"Holy shit." Demetri whispered quietly. "I knew it."

"What? What is it?" Sam asked, curiously. Demetri quickly took a photo of Miguel and the person he was meeting with, and then he passed it over to Sam. When Sam saw it, her heart stopped. Though the photo was blurry, there was no doubt as to who Miguel was meeting with. The picture had been snapped just as Miguel was hugging with none other than Tory Nichols.

"What the…" George stammered in shock as he saw the photo.

"Guys…" Demetri said quietly. "Miguel's been working with Cobra Kai all this time. He's trying to betray us…"

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The next morning, Miguel walked into training with his now standard beaming grin on his face. It had been an okay night, with him, Tory and Mary pinpointing three brand new locations that Emily could potentially be at that they would begin investigating that night. Like always, his false cheer wasn't fooling anyone and this time, Miyagi-Do could prove it. As soon as Miguel walked into the dojo, he felt every eye in the dojo on him and immediately saw Sam leap to her feet and storm over to him.

"Hey, Sam, what's up?" Miguel asked casually. Sam didn't say anything, her face looked in a deadly scowl, and she slapped him in the face as hard as she could. The deafening SLAP echoed through the dojo as her hand made contact with the side of Miguel's head.

"Fuck you, Miguel." She growled, tears brimming in her eyes.

"Jesus, have I missed something? What the hell's going on?" Miguel asked, clutching his cheek as he felt it begin to sprout a nasty red welt on his left cheek.

"Cut the act, Miguel. We know." Demetri snapped. Miguel raised an eyebrow.

"Know… know what?" He asked, feigning cluelessness though his heart had sunk as he knew what he was about to be told next.

"Oh, just the crap! We know everything!" Sam snarled. Miguel's heart began to pound faster and faster, but he forced himself to remain unmoved.

"Look, you guys are going to have to be more specific. I mean, you're all smart people here but I doubt anyone in this world truly knows everything. I mean, look at those scientists. Always discovering new things everyday. And also society's evolution changes day by day, don't you think? So when you say you know everything, I don't know if you really know everything, and…"

Miguel's waffling was a clever way to try and distract the group from the topic at hand, but unfortunately it didn't work. He was interrupted by Sam's arm reaching back once again and preparing to slap him, but Miguel was too fast this time. He caught Sam's arm easily in mid air, used her momentum to spin her around, and then push her from the back. Sam stumbled forward, nearly falling over from the rough shove, but she stayed on her feet and turned back to face Miguel, unbridled fury in her eyes.

"I'd kindly ask you guys to keep your hands to yourself, lest I break them off." Miguel murmured, his cheerful tone completely vanished now and a low, firm, almost threatening one taking its place.

"Oh, you are in NO place to ask us for everything after what you did!" Demetri spat. Miguel turned to him and was about to laugh at the half-assed comment from the boy so much weaker than him, but thought the better, instead raising his hands in a surrendering gesture.

"Guys, look, I know what it looks like, but it's not what it looks like…" Miguel began.

"Oh, I think it's exactly what it looks like!" Demetri snapped. "You're a Cobra Kai through and through. Snake to the bone. You only joined Miyagi-Do as an uncover spy for them, learning the best of Miyagi-Do before planning to double-cross us right before the All-Valley and returning to your masters like a good little soldier!"

Miguel shook his head.

"Look, it's not like that. I'm not a part of Cobra Kai." Miguel stated.

"Oh yeah, then why did we see you hugging Tory last night? Did you then go and meet Kreese and suck his dick?!" Demetri shouted, barely making sense in his rage. He knew this would happen. He had warned Miyagi-Do the second Miguel had entered their gates that Miguel was a double agent, but nobody had believed him! No, they were all jizzing themselves so much about his arrival that they couldn't see what was right in front of them!

"What? Jesus no! What the fuck?! Look, I haven't even seen Kreese since I left! And I am NOT a Cobra Kai. For better or worse, I'm here in Miyagi-Do! George, you believe me, right?"

Everyone turned around to look at George in the corner of the room, who had been weirdly silent throughout all this. As someone who knew Miguel better than anyone, he was more reluctant to buy into the Miguel is a Cobra Kai agent rumors. He knew that because Kreese hadn't asked him to spy too, it had been just Miguel, and Miguel hadn't in the few months they had been in Miyagi-Do told him about it.

"Look… I honestly don't think you're a Cobra Kai. I know as well as anyone the shit Kreese puts his students through and I know how amazing it felt to quit so I highly doubt you're still with him. However, I am definitely interested to hear why you were with Tory last night."

"I'll tell you why. It's because he's still a Cobra Kai!" Demetri butted in.

"OH, MY GOD I'M NOT A FUCKING COBRA KAI!" Miguel bellowed at Demetri at the top of his lungs.

Suddenly, the alarmed voices of the two senseis came from the entrance of the dojo…

"Woah, woah, woah, what the hell is going on in here?!"